[10—11 December (27—28 November) 1917]

Comrade Uritsky!

Write out what is new with the Constituent] A[ssembly].
Do you know that we have released the arrested?
Have measures been taken to prevent them from entering the building?
Would you not draw up a conclusion about their arrest (reasons and significance and benefit)?1

Lenin.

1 The note to M. S. Uritsky was apparently written at a session of the SNK on 10 or 11 December (27 or 28 November) 1918, on the same day or the day after the release of arrested members of the All-Russian Electoral Commission for elections to the Constituent Assembly.

On the back of this note, in an unknown hand is written: "To V. I. from point 5," and in V. I. Lenin's hand a mark is made—"to § 5"—not referring to this document; from this arises the supposition that the note was written at a session of the Council of People's Commissars.

DECREE.

It is hereby prescribed to comrade soldiers and sailors performing guard duty within the walls of the Taurida] Palace to permit no violence whatsoever against the counter-revolutionary part of the Constituent] Assembly and, while freely releasing all from the Taurida] Palace, to admit no one into it without special orders.

Chairman of the Council of People's] Commissars

V. Ulyanov (Lenin).

Petrograd, 5/6—I. 1918

Below we publish three documents representing successive stages of Lenin's elaboration of the decree on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly.

The basic content of the decree is already outlined in the first sketch of theses, apparently made during the night of 48 to 49 (5 to 6 January 1918, before the SNK session on 49 (6) January 1918 on the question of the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly.

The points initially outlined were subsequently developed into theses providing a principled substantiation of the necessity for dissolving the Constituent Assembly and representing already a synopsis of the decree.

These theses were read point by point and adopted at